ptavoly@cs.ruu.nl (Peter Tavoly) (05/30/91)
This is a review of the information I got, not of the board itself.
Last friday I finally got the info I requested some months ago (!) via the
Amigaworld reader service card. Perhaps this was not their fault, but they
did manage to spell my name as 'Thoams' (weird :^)
My own comments are between square brackets [] and are to be disregarded,
best way is to go through 'sed' deleting all in between []'s :^)
The letter consisted of four pages, [1] with a picture and specs of the
board, [2] with some test results with the Toaster and Imagine 3D, [3] with
a comparison benchmark (linpacks and dhrystones) and [4] an order form.
Anyway, [1] said:
"Let those who have understanding reckon the power of"
[hmm.. one of the developers (or ad people) must have been an Iron Maiden
fan :^) ]
[large augmented capitals] FUSION FORTY
[a small rastered picture of the card on the left, showing the MC68040 with
heat sink and what seems to be 16MB of SCRAM ZIPs. The board is pretty
tightly packed (full length) and looks OK. I can see about 36 rectangular
chips (of which four are probably EPROMs), two square chips (of which one
is the 68040), one quartz and some miscellaneous components like resistors,
condensors and other stuff I can't make out. No SMD, but everything seems
to be socketed (very hard to see). The CPU is obscured by an enormous heat
sink; is the 68040 really that large? There also seems to be a connector
near the RAM space that looks like a floppy/parallel/serial/whatever
connector (?) ]
[to the middle right:]
Mega-steroid acceleration for the Amiga 2000
Performance:
o Motorola MC68040 microprocessor at 25 Mhz.
o 18 - 25 MIPS, 3.5 - 8.0 MFLOPS [seems a bit too optimistic..]
o 32-bit RAM
Quality and availability:
o 6-layer board with separate ground and power planes for uniform voltage
stability.
o extensive use of decoupling devices minimizes electrical noise.
o high-performance clock for the tight electrical specifications of the
MC68040.
o heat sink to dissipate heat generated by the MC68040.
Expandability:
o memory available in 4 MB, 16 MB and 32 MB configurations.
Features:
o hardware select switch to disable accelerator board and run original
processor.
o asynchronous design for Genlock compatibility.
o user object code compatibility with all earlier Motorola 68000 series
microprocessors
o 9 watt power usage.
o compatible with Videotoaster, Imagine and other software.
o one year warranty.
[to the bottom-middle a box with comparisons:]
Board: Fusion40 C= 2630 A3001 GVP IBM i486
CPU: MC68040 MC68030 MC68030 i80486
Clock: 25 Mhz 25 Mhz 25 Mhz 25 Mhz
MIPS: 20+ 5.8+ 6.4+ 15
[remember: MIPS = Meaningless Information about Processor Speed (or Million
Instructions Per Second). No SPECMARKs are given]
MFLOPS: 3.5+ <1 <1 1. [yes, like that: 1.]
Cache: 4KB x2 256bytes x2 256 bytes x2 8 KB
Burst: Yes No [?] Yes Yes
Memory: 4 MB standard Max. 4 MB needs [empty space]
daughterboard
on board: Max. 32 MB Max. 4 MB [empty space] [empty space]
[address:]
RCS Management Inc.
120 Mc Gill, Montreal, Quebec, Tel.:(514) 871-4924
Canada, H2Y 2E5 Fax.:(514) 871-4926
[2 lines of copyright stuff]
[to the bottom right the name and phone # of the ad agency. I might as well
assert here that I do not consider this as 'professional looking': bad
choice of letter styles, graphics not very good, bad picture quality, wrong
kind of fancying (ad printed slanted) etc. Either this was a minute job, or
they are like Commodore :^) -> IMHO, IMHO]
[2]
[centered] Fusion-Forty
16 MB 25 Mhz
Videotoaster test:
[all kinds of selection numbers probably intended to dazzle the novice]
objects: space: spaceships
Rendered with high resolution: 2 minutes 54 seconds.
with alias: 6 minutes 23 seconds.
[no comparison to 68030, so numbers are pretty useless unless you know what
that spaceship thing really is..]
Imagine 3D:
We are 2.5 - 3 times faster than 68030 25 Mhz.
[that is at least a clear claim, however, it is not supported by any
numbers, apart from some wording like: "The F40 generated the image twice
while the 68030 reached only 97%"]
[3]
Comparison benchmarks using linpack and dhrystones
[no mention of what version..]
[I left out the column processor type, because it didn't fit, you can derive
the type from the name anyway]
Int. Ext. D(Kflops) S(Kflops) Ronin Clock MIPS Max.
Cache Cache Linpack Linpack Drhyst. CPU-speed (Mhz) memory
NCR
S486/MC33 8K 128K 882.2 26929 N/A 33 15.39 64MB
EVEREX STEP
486/33 8K 128K 895.9 26912 N/A 33 15.38 8MB
CLUB HAWK III
486/33 8K 256K 926.3 27472 N/A 33 15.70 8MB
AST PREMIUM
486/33 8K NONE 894.7 25849 N/A 33 14.77 4MB
Commodore
A2620 256bytes x2 NONE 50 4725 3.97 14 2.70 4MB
GVP 68030 256bytes x2 NONE 102 10330 9.13 25 5.90 20MB
GVP 68030 256bytes x2 NONE 204 20660 18.26 50 11.81 20MB
Fusion-Forty
4K x2 NONE 1920 31645 27.40 25 18.08 32MB
[there are also two notes:]
* figures shown for the 50 Mhz version of the GVP board are double the ones
of the 25 Mhz board as it was not actually tested
** The figures used for the Fusion-Forty does not at present represent
maximum throughput, as the programs used were not optimized for the MC68040
[4]
PURCHASE ORDER FORM
VERSION PRICE QUANTITY DISCOUNT TOTAL
F40 4 MB 2995.US $100
F40 16 MB 3995.US $125
F40 32 MB 5595.US $175
AmigaNet 2000 500.US $ 20
[various data to be entered + payment terms]
- certified check / money order / company check
- PAYMENT IN ADVANCE
- For orders greater than 1 unit, a 50% deposit will be accepted.
delivery:
6-8 weeks from date of purchase. delivery time from Motorola is 4-5 weeks
from date of order.
[does this mean that you will have to wait at most 8+5=13 weeks ??]
[*large* letters:]
THIS OFFER ENDS IN 60 DAYS
[date on the postage stamp is the verification date. Since the stamp says
16-05-1991 for me, uhh.. you figure it out :) ]
--------
<Sigh> I am in no way affiliated with RCS Management or their dog, except
that I *yearn* to have one of those boards.. In fact, why did I type this
up anyway? If you read through it and fell asleep, send me a mail, just so
that I may think twice next time :^) (Or just a subject: I saw it)
Now I have to go and soak my fingertips,
-Thomas. ->new sig!
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Thomas Tavoly |The meaning of life, the universe & everything: / / /
Commercial CS | Speed Metal, Waterpolo, Hungarian food, AMIGA /
HEAO Utrecht, NL.| SF/Fantasy, c.s.a.*, UN*X, s*x & of course:____ / / /
------------------------------------------------------------- \ \ \/ / /
Don't call us, we will not call you either. -TT .sig v3.2 \_\_\/_/
God made one mistake when he created man: He wrote self-modifying code.. -E'n
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ptavoly@praxis.cs.ruu.nl = Peter Tavoly != ME! (Just my account :^)whites@unvax.union.edu (Shayne White) (06/04/91)
The date of the postmark on the Fusion-Forty ad (16-05-91) is may 16th. In Canada, they use the British date system day/month/year. Shayne White